Chapter 10: The Budget Is Burning
Dusk gradually fell over the main street of the abandoned area.
The damaged streetlights on both sides of the road flickered on and off. Normally, it was impossible to clearly see the street, but now more than a thousand people had gathered, each either holding a flashlight or with a blinding trail lamp hanging from their clothes, forcibly lighting up the street as bright as day.
On the street, the two sides each occupied one end. On one side were vagrants of the human race, each over two meters two or three tall. On the other side were members of the crystal race, over three meters tall, gems embedded in their foreheads, muscles all over their bodies like steel. The two sides were less than twenty meters apart on the street, each holding blades, swords, staves, and clubs, glaring viciously at each other, already exuding an atmosphere of a battle that could erupt at any moment.
“Hou Fei! You have crossed the line! This is our human residential area!”
Among the human vagrants, a one-eyed middle-aged man over two meters four tall stepped forward with a silver spear in hand. As he took a step, the concrete ground cracked open, making everyone present click their tongues in shock.
Cracking the concrete with a single step, this kind of strength, if not that of a quasi-martial artist, was that of a peak martial artist apprentice extremely close to quasi-martial artist level.
“Heavy Spear Qin Mu! I really did not expect you to be living in this area.” From the crystal race on the other side, a young man over three meters tall with three blue gems on his forehead, Hou Fei, also stepped out. He seemed completely unconcerned by this scene and spoke casually.
“But Qin Mu, you should be very clear that recently several genius martial artists have emerged among the Half-Scale Race. Some gangs of the Half-Scale Race have expanded their factions and occupied several decent abandoned areas. Many vagrants of other races are now homeless.”
“This abandoned area of yours is not small. Even if you give us half of it, it will be enough for you to live.”
“Get lost! You shameless bastards! If you need a place to live, does that mean we do not need a place to live?” Qin Mu, gripping the silver spear, shouted sharply. “Since the founding of the City of Light Chasing, this area has always been where our human race lives. In the past, your various races looked down on this place. Now you actually have the face to come and snatch it!”
“If you want a place to live, there are plenty of other spots in the abandoned area. You can go there right now. No one is competing with you for those!”
On the main street, as the two men spoke, the atmosphere became even more tense, and more people gathered on both sides, vaguely about to exceed two thousand.
“Heavy Spear Qin Mu?”
“Are those few genius martial artists of the Half-Scale Race causing such a big influence?”
Lin Qi, who had just rushed over, heard their words and did not expect that the one-eyed uncle from earlier was actually quite well known. At the same time, he gained a deeper understanding of genius martial artists.
He had thought that the birth of those genius martial artists in the City of Light Chasing would only affect the cake of the senior officials, and at most make the various races in the suburbs pay a bit more rent. He did not expect that even the abandoned area would be implicated.
While Lin Qi was marveling at and troubled by the influence of the genius martial artists, Fang Zhen, standing behind him in a dark gray T-shirt long gown along with the other two, were like curious babies, filled with novelty at the scene before them.
“Damn! Damn! Damn! Such a huge scene! So many NPCs! And I am not even getting frame drops. This tech is simply godlike!” Twilight of the Gods, seeing such a grand spectacle, especially the meticulous, microscopic graphics, had no idea how to describe it.
With virtual technology constantly progressing, although the virtual degree kept increasing, a huge problem had also emerged along with it.
In overly large scenes, especially with more than a thousand people on screen, various frame drops would appear. Major companies had spent large amounts of manpower researching this. The only thing they could do was reduce quality, and even so, frame drops still appeared.
But now, in High Martial Arts Descend, with a grand scene of more than two thousand people, not to mention frame drops, even the virtual degree did not seem to decrease in the slightest. It was simply godlike.
“Yellow sand filling the sky, a thousand people on the same screen, and no frame drops?” Fang Zhen looked at the more than a thousand people, each with their own distinct actions, and at the sudden sandstorm sweeping across the sky, every grain of sand incomparably clear as it struck everyone’s bodies. His mouth hung open. “It is too real! These graphics are simply art! No, every single frame is art!”
As a professional game player, Fang Zhen had seen far too many sandstorm weathers in the game Mecha Continent and knew very well how big a trial this kind of effect posed for a virtual game.
Normally, once a battle exceeded ten people, those grains of sand would become blurred, which made battles extremely demanding on players’ eyesight and judgment.
In the current scene, thousands shared the field, and the yellow sand all over the sky was one thing, but Fang Zhen could clearly feel those grains scattering on his body, one by one. He had no idea how much funding it would take to optimize the system to this level.
“Is there no influence on us?”
Almost the moment Wu Shang saw this, she gripped the alloy shovel and began hacking hard at the concrete road under her feet, growing more and more excited and thrilled as she dug.
There truly was no impact.
Her control over her body was not affected at all; or rather, she simply did not feel any effect.
This tech was practically black technology.
The behavior of Fang Zhen, Twilight of the Gods, and Wu Shang instantly drew shock-filled gazes from many of the vagrants who had rushed over.
As humans from Blue Star, the three of them were, in the High Martial Arts World, not even as tall as middle schoolers, not to mention that two of them seemed possessed, as if under some spell, while the other woman kept shoveling at the ground, getting more and more into it.
No matter how one looked at it, this scene was bizarre and completely out of place with the current tense atmosphere.
“Where did these three kids come from? Where are their parents?”
“All three of them are wearing dark gray T-shirt long gowns. Could they be from some gang?”
“These days, there really are all kinds of parents, actually letting three kids join a gang. How pitiful. The three of them are all holding shovels and wearing the same clothes. They should be from the same gang, but among our human gangs, I do not think any gang uses shovels. Could it be a newly formed gang?”
The vagrants present could not help but whisper as they watched the three who seemed to be having a breakdown. This scene also made Lin Qi instinctively step forward a few paces to put some distance between them.
Although Lin Qi could understand what Fang Zhen and the other two were thinking, he really could not handle how they were acting.
On the other side of the main street, Heavy Spear Qin Mu and Hou Fei, who knew each other, looked at one another for a long moment and then both sighed helplessly.
“Qin Mu, let us skip the nonsense. According to the old rules of the City of Light Chasing, are you planning on a group battle or a one-on-one?” Hou Fei directly drew a line, and the crystal race members all turned their eyes to Heavy Spear Qin Mu.
“If it is a group battle, how do you plan to fight it? If it is a duel, who fights whom? What is the playstyle?” Heavy Spear Qin Mu was not surprised by this.
In disputes over vagrant territory in the City of Light Chasing, when both sides’ numbers and strength were roughly similar, they would set a rule and fight a match to decide the ownership of the area.
First, doing this reduced casualties on both sides.
Second, it made the result easier for both sides to accept.
“For a group battle, each side sends one hundred people, and only when all of one side’s people fall and admit defeat does the other side win. As for the duel, it will be just you and me. Weapons allowed, but we stop at first blood.” Hou Fei suggested. “I recommend the duel.”
“Fine. Then a duel. I also want to see whether the Crystal Bear of the wilderness lives up to its name.” Heavy Spear Qin Mu nodded in agreement.
Second update complete!
